1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to automobile-installed-apparatus controllers provided with members used for operation and designation of the contents of control, such as switches and variable resistors, and in particular to an automobile-installed-apparatus controller in which when an optional control-designation unit among a plurality of types of control-designation units having different switching functions is mounted on a switch mount of a control apparatus, for which the type of switching function of the mounted control-designation unit can be automatically determined by the control apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a plurality of manual switches for adjusting air-conditioning inside an automobile are arranged on the panel surface of an instrument panel in the automobile. By selectively operating a switch among the plurality of switches, the air-conditioning inside the automobile can be switched to cooling or heating, and temperature for cooling or temperature for heating can be increased or decreased.
In addition, recently, in accordance with users' demands, a switching apparatus has been proposed, in which the panel surface of an instrument panel is provided with switch mounts on which a plurality of manual switches for options can be mounted other than a plurality of manual switches for controlling air-conditioning inside an automobile. In other words, the switching apparatus has unit mounts on which a plurality of types of control-designation units can be mounted, and can cope with user's options by employing a structure in which one or a plurality of different types of control-designation units for achieving user-demanded functions: for example, adjustment of the optical axes of headlights, control of fog lamp activation, opening the trunk, and so forth are mounted on the unit mounts, and the mounted control-designation units are switched.
In this case, according to the proposed switching apparatus, any type of control-designation unit can be mounted on the unit mount, and a switching signal from the mounted control-designation unit is processed by a control unit (CPU) of a controller, thereby, even when any type of control-designation unit is mounted on the unit mount, the function of the control-designation unit can be achieved by operating the switch of the mounted control-designation unit.
Incidentally, concerning a known switching apparatus as described, an automobile-installed-apparatus controller provided with the function of automatically determining the type of a control-designation unit when the unit is mounted on a unit mount has been devised. One example of the apparatus is a switching apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 7-262867.
The switching apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 7-262867 comprises a plurality of types of control-designation units, a control apparatus for selectively mounting the control-designation units on unit mounts, and a control-circuit unit included in the control apparatus, wherein the control-designation units are provided with recognition-signal generating means for generating recognition signals peculiar to the respective control-designation units, and the control-circuit unit is provided with a switch-discrimination circuit for generating a driving signal for driving a predetermined load on receiving the recognition signal. In this case the recognition-signal generating means has different internal interconnections for the types of control-designation units, and outputs a different recognition signal (switching signal) when the switch of the control-designation unit is operated (turned on). The switch-discrimination circuit has a plurality of logic circuits, a plurality of input terminals and a plurality of output terminals. When the recognition signal (switching signal) from the mounted control-designation unit is supplied to any one of the plurality of input terminals, the switch-discrimination circuit outputs a driving signal (switching signal) to be supplied to a load, which corresponds to the function of the control-designation unit mounted on any one of the output terminals, in accordance with the input terminal and the polarity of the supplied signal (switching signal)
As described above, according to the switching apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 7-262867, control-designation units of desired types are mounted on unit mounts of a control-circuit unit, and when a switch of a control-designation unit is turned on, a recognition signal peculiar to a function of the control-designation unit is generated from the control-designation unit and is supplied to a switch-discrimination circuit of the control-designation unit, and the type of the mounted control-designation unit is determined based on the recognition signal received by the switch-discrimination circuit. Thus, only by exchanging control-designation units to be mounted on the unit mounts, the control-designation units with various functions can be automatically determined, and an operation corresponding to the function of the mounted control-designation unit can be executed.
Also, according to the switching apparatus disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 7-262867, by mounting a control-designation unit on a unit mount of a control-circuit unit, discrimination between control-designation units with various functions can be automatically performed and an operation corresponding to the function of the mounted control-designation unit can be executed. In order to discriminate between the functions of the control-designation units, the different types of control-designation units must have different internal interconnections including switches, and the control-circuit unit must have a switch-discrimination circuit including a plurality of logic circuits, a plurality of input terminals and a plurality of output terminals. In addition, the discrimination means for the control-designation units is complicated, so a problem occurs, in which production cost of the control-circuit unit naturally increases.
Moreover, in the switch-discrimination circuit, combinations of logic circuits are inevitably limited, which limits the number of types of control designation units.